


Just Like That

by MintSauce



Series: The Halfway House [12]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 04:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSauce/pseuds/MintSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carl comes to ask for advice, but in the end, it's Mickey that comes to a grand realisation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Like That

Ian’s at work when someone comes pounding on their door.

            Mickey opens it, disgruntled and more than a little sleepy. He’d gotten in from his shift not long ag and he really hates Wednesdays as its his shift that ends right when Ian’s begins. So he doesn’t get the chance to crawl into bed with him like he wants to when he gets home. Instead he has to climb into a cold bed and try and convince his body to get some sleep.

            He’d just managed to when someone had knocked.

            When he sees who it is, he really considers just slamming the door again. It’s really tempting, but since Carl is one of the Gallaghers that Ian is actually on good terms with, it would probably only result in him landing his ass in trouble later.

            “What do you want?” he asks, still scowling. “Ian ain’t here.”

            To be fair, the kid looks a little distraught. Nervous maybe.

            He rubs a hand over his short hair, breathes out a low, “ _Fuck,_ ” and then turns hopeful eyes on Mickey.

            “I need some advice,” he says.

            “So come back when you’re brothers here,” Mickey says. Now he’s spoken to him, he wonders if it would be rude to shut the door.

            Carl sighs, foot scuffing against the doorframe. “I think I’d rather talk to you actually,” he confesses. “I won’t be long, I swear, I just really need you to tell me something.”

            He already knows this is a losing battle he’s fighting. He should have known it the minute he actually opened the door. So Mickey steps back and motions the kid inside. “You want a beer?” he asks. He has a feeling they’re both going to want alcohol to have this conversation.

            He doesn’t think this kid is actually old enough to be drinking the beer he guzzles down, but when did that ever stop anyone in this neighbourhood?

            “Just spit it out, kid,” Mickey says, leaning against the kitchen counter whilst Carl collapses into one of the three rickety chairs that Ian insists qualifies as having a ‘dining room’.

            Carl does just that. “ _Howdidyouknowyouweregay?LikehowdidyouandIangettogether?”_

            Mickey blinks.

            “Maybe not literally,” he says. “Shit, just… one thing at a time.”

            Carl nods, a flush rising on his cheeks. “How did you and Ian get together? Like… how did you know you were both gay?”

            Honestly, Mickey thought the kid was just going to ask him to help bury a body.

            He would have preferred that.

            Mickey scratches the back of his neck, debating whether or not to actually answer. Of course he does, because the kid’s looking one step away from throwing up all over their linoleum. “He just came out and said it,” Mickey says, smiling a little when he thinks about the night.

            He remembers the shake in Ian’s voice and the panic that rose, threatening to choke him, in Mickey’s throat. Everything his dad had ever taught him said he had to beat the gay right out of a person. His fingers had twitched, threatening to form a fist, but then he’d looked over at Ian where he had been staring resolutely at the ceiling.

            It had been _Ian_.

            Good and just that right about of tainted. Dopey and stupid and beautiful and _Mickey’s_. He had been Mickey’s to protect from that very first moment. And Mickey intended to do so, even if who he had to protect Ian from was himself.

            “And what did you do?” Carl asks.

            Mickey snorts. “I told him there was an easy way to test it if he didn’t know,” he says. “Then I put his hand on my cock.”

            “Just like that?”

            “Just like that.”

            Of course, it hadn’t quite been that simple. The entire time Ian’s hand had been on his cock, the only thing keeping Mickey from getting hard had been pure, undiluted fear. His head had been filled with all the possible _what if’s_.

            What if this got them killed?

            What if this ended badly?

            What if Ian didn’t actually want him?

            What if Ian wasn’t actually gay, but was just testing him?

            What if this worked out?

            What if this was Mickey’s one chance, one chance to finally have something worth having?

            It had been the last what if and the feel of Ian’s dick hardening under his touch that had cemented his plan. Ian wasn’t the sort to be trying to trip Mickey up, he was too good for that. And Mickey found he was willing to take the chance that this could end badly if he just got this one moment.

            He remembered how Ian’s eyes had been screwed shut, how harsh his breathing had been every second they’d laid together in that bed. He remembered hunching over Ian slightly, feeling like he could guard him from the whole world, but also like he wanted to rip the younger boy to pieces. With his teeth and mouth and lips and tongue. With everything he had.

            He’d wanted to completely own every piece of Ian, so he hadn’t moved his hand.

            He’d said Happy Birthday and he’d thought, there’s an excuse if this goes badly. And then he hadn’t thought much past the feeling of Ian’s length in his palm, of the way Ian bucked up and keened, pressing into Mickey’s touch.

            He’d finally got to mark Ian as his that night and he was still working on making every mark he wanted to stick.

            It was funny though, to think that that had been the beginning. It seemed like such a backwards way to start in some ways.

            “How did you know you were gay though?” Carl asks next.

            Mickey shrugs. I don’t know isn’t the right answer, but he’s not sure how much he wants to give the real one. “You tell anyone this, I’ll cut your balls off and make you swallow them, you get me?”

            Carl nods quickly.

            “Back before we all got split up, I remember my Ma telling my brother, Iggy, that he’d know when he found the right girl to fall in love with, because he wouldn’t just think she was pretty, he’d think she was the only thing worth looking at,” he explains. He can feel his cheeks going pink already. “And I mean, I was about five, so I didn’t really get what she meant. Because I’d look around and I’d see lots of pretty girls, but they were all just that. Objectively pretty. She said the same thing to Mandy though too, once. That she would know when she found the right guy, because he wouldn’t just be good looking, he would be amazing enough that she wouldn’t ever want to look away.”

            He takes a long pull from his beer, swilling the liquid around his mouth as he thinks of those days spent lying in a pillow fort with his mother, brother and sister. How far they’ve come now, huh? Abandoned by his mother, not knowing if his brother was alive or dead and with Mandy living two hours away with a boyfriend she hated and a baby she could barely cope with.

            “So then I maybe thought that the point wasn’t what they actually looked like. Girls were pretty. Boys were good looking. But like… I dunno. I guess I thought what my Ma meant was that I’d look at this person and immediately know that I didn’t want to look away. At first I guess I just assumed it would be a girl.”

            He remembers being a child and looking so intently at all the girls in his class, at their faces. He remembers being so desperate to feel _something_ , but not so it would prove he wasn’t gay. He hadn’t even considered that yet. No, Mickey, pathetic as he was as a child, had just wanted to love something and to have something love him.

            “And that’s what you felt when you looked at Ian that first time?” Carl asks.

            Mickey scoffs. “Fuck no.”

            “I don’t get it then.”

            Mickey smirks, thumbs at his lip and sets his beer down on the counter beside him. “At first all I wanted to do was look away from your brother. I didn’t like him, thought he was annoying and scrawny and he just _wouldn’t shut up_ ,” he says. “I used to think about all the ways I could break his jaw; but then I realised, I hadn’t tried to do any of them. If it had been anyone else, I would have just hit them and walked away. But I kept answering his questions, even after I told him to shut up.”

            He shrugs. “It wasn’t that I looked at him and then didn’t want to look away,” he says. “It was that I looked at him and then was too scared to look back. I knew, maybe not instantly, but I still knew that there was something different there. A crush, attraction, whatever, it was there.

            “And then it was this hot as all fuck day, just before your brother turned thirteen and he threw this punch at a kid who said I was just an unwanted nobody. Nobody had defended me before and I remember looking at him, like really looking and I got what my Ma was talking about. I couldn’t get bored of looking at him, still can’t. You know?”

            Carl was frowning, picking at the label on his beer, the tiny pieces of paper fluttering down to the ground. “Not really,” he admits eventually. “I still don’t know how I can tell if I’m gay or not.”

            Mickey sighs. He should have known that was the whole issue here. Really, it should have been obvious.

            “If you wanted to find that out, you should have just fucking said,” Mickey mutters, already striding across the room to grab their laptop from where Ian kept it stashed under the coffee table on that stupid little shelf.

            He booted it up and clicked around the ‘bookmarked’ tabs for a minute before dropping the thing in front of Carl. “I’m gonna go take a piss,” he says. “Watch that. If it gets your dick hard. Congrats, you’ve joined the ‘mo brigade, go get your own fucking badge.”

            He left Carl to the sounds of high, fake moans reverberating around his kitchen.

            In the bathroom, he took his time pissing, too caught up in his head to be in any sort of hurry to interrupt Carl’s porn fest. He swore to God though, if the kid was beating off out there, Mickey was going to cut it off.

            In the bathroom, with nothing but the sound of his piss hitting the bowl, all Mickey could do was think.

            He couldn’t remember the exact moment he realised he was gay, because he didn’t really have a word for it when it started. When he’d looked at Gallagher, blood slick on his face and eyes so wild and angry as he defended Mickey against words he’d heard a hundred times before, he’d become fascinated. Maybe he’d been fascinated before, but that was the first time he really noticed it.

            He remembers lying there as Ian had spoken his confession and thought, _ahh, that’s why I think you’re beautiful_.

            He’d finally had a word for it, but it didn’t change the fact that before, whenever his dick had been in his hand, he’d thought of red hair and freckles, plump lips and long fingers. The person had never had a face, it had just been fragments, but thinking about it, it had been so obvious it was Ian.

            It had always been Ian it seemed.

            Sometimes, it wasn’t like there had ever been any other option. There’d been no one else he wanted, just Ian. Always Ian.

            _So why did he keep messing this up?_

            _Why was he still so scared?_

_What did he have to lose?_

            “Still like chicks,” Carl says when Mickey comes back out of the bathroom. The laptop is closed and pushed back on the table and Carl was just leaning back, casually sipping on his beer. He looks relaxed now, like Mickey’s helped him solve some great, plaguing mystery. “I mean _boobs_. But, definitely a little bit gay.”

            “You need to talk about not being ashamed?” Mickey asks.

            Carl pins him with a look, like he can see right through to that place deep inside of Mickey that he doesn’t usually let people see. It makes him squirm. “Why would I be? It’s no big deal,” he says, still staring. “Do you?”

            “Fuck you, man,” he says, instinctively.

            Carl laughs, but it’s not cruel. He just doesn’t sound surprised.

            “No hate man, seriously,” he says. “I think you’re alright. You make Ian happy. But you don’t really seem alright with being gay.”

            Mickey’s first thought is _why would I be?_ But that’s not right, is it?

            Because… he should be. He should be really fucking pleased that he was gay. If he wasn’t, where would he be? He’d probably be in some dead end relationship, kid he didn’t want on the way and still beneath his dad’s thumb.

            Being gay had made him get out, had made him free himself from a shitty upbringing and a shitty life. He had something better now, _because_ he was gay. _Because of Ian_. Because being gay meant he had to survive, it meant he had to be different even if he didn’t want to be.

            So he should be pleased that he was. He couldn’t help it, so he at least shouldn’t be ashamed.

            Was he ashamed?

            Ian often tossed that one out when they were arguing.

            _You’re ashamed of me_.

            Like Mickey wanted to shove them both back into the closet and turn out the light. Which, he didn’t. He didn’t. He just wanted to keep them safe. He didn’t mind people knowing, he didn’t mind kissing Ian where people could see. He didn’t mind going on dates and holding his hands, or anything. He just didn’t want them to get hurt because of it.

            He knew the sorts of people in this neighbourhood. He knew what would happen if they were who they were born to be, who Ian wanted them to be. And he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let being gay be the end of them.

            He could compromise though, maybe, couldn’t he?

            “Just had one of those emphasis things, didn’t you?” Carl asks, smirking.

            Mickey punches his arm, unable to help himself, but it’s almost affectionate. Almost. “It’s fucking _epiphany_ , you dick,” he says and then rubs a harsh hand over the kid’s hair. Like he remembers Iggy doing to him when they were kids. “Thanks though,” he says, chewing one his bottom lip.

            He feels uncomfortable, but he has to say it.

            Carl smiles, like he knows how much it means. “It’s no problem, man, seriously.” He stands and drains the last of his beer. “I’ll get out your hair, but thanks. Guess I have a place to be now.”

            Mickey frowns, watching him start to walk towards the door. “What brought this on, by the way? Like… what caused the whole gay crisis?”

            The kid ducks his head bashfully and scratches a hand over his closely shorn scalp. “A guy kissed me,” he admits. “Told him I needed time to work out if I liked guys or not. Guess I’ve worked it out now, so I should probably go tell him.”

            “Just like that?” Mickey asks.

            “Just like that.”

            He laughs, can’t help himself. “You know, you’re really something, kid,” Mickey says.

            He always thought of Carl as the psychopath one, the one that he needed to watch, but he still can’t help but think, maybe the Gallaghers got something right in this one regardless. He may be a nut-job, but he had his head screwed on right just enough.

            “I’ll see you around,” Carl says, closing the door behind him.

            Mickey’s left standing there, wondering how the hell the day came to this? Wednesdays were supposed to be shit until Ian crawled his way home and into bed. Mickey wasn’t supposed to actually learn something on them.

            He does eventually manage to get back to sleep, curled up underneath covers that smell like Ian. He doesn’t hear the door open and close, but wakes when Ian’s fingers slip under the edge of his t-shirt as he crawls into bed behind him.

            “Hey sleepyhead,” Ian says, kissing Mickey’s neck.

            “Hey,” Mickey replies softly.

            “You had a good day?” he asks.

            Mickey hums into the pillow, tugging Ian’s arm so it’s firmer around him. He feels safe here, in Ian’s arms. Safe enough to confess the day’s events. Safe enough to face anything.

            “Your brother came ‘round,” he says.

            “Lip?”

            “No, the psychopath.”

            “What did Carl want?” Ian asks, surprised. “Everything okay?”

            Mickey nods and twists just enough in Ian’s hold that he can cup the side of Ian’s face. Looking into his dopey, confused expression, he can understand why he was so fascinated all those years ago. Ian Gallagher really is something special to look at. He can understand not wanting to look away.

            “Ian, you know I’m not ashamed of us, right?” he asks, thumb worrying at the side of Ian’s mouth. “Of being with you or of being gay. I don’t… I just don’t want you to get hurt for this. I just want to keep you safe.”

            Ian looks concerned as he slides a hand into the back of Mickey’s hair, holding him gently, softer than Mickey thinks he has ever deserved to be held. “I know,” he says. “Mick, I know, but you don’t have to protect us all the time. People will be assholes, we can handle a bit of criticism.”

            He nods and smiles against the soft kiss that Ian gives him.

            “I’m glad you got roomed with me,” Mickey admits, even though he thinks he must have admitted this a thousand times already. He thinks it must be obvious.

            Ian grins. “Me too,” he says. A small frown starts to crease between his eyebrows a second later. “How did all this come from my brother visiting though?” he asks.

            Mickey snorts. “Oh, nutso has decided he wants to try riding on the disco stick for a while.”

            Ian looks confused and it’s hilarious to see the realisation slowly spread across his face. “Oh Mickey, what, _ugh_. Why would I want to think about Carl like that?” he asks. He gags, smacking Mickey away from him across the bed. “You’re a fucking dick.”

            “Yeah, I fuck dick,” he says. “Just like your baby brother now apparently.”

            A second later he falls of the bed from laughing so hard. Although, the foot Ian shoved into his stomach probably helped along the process a little bit. Still, it was worth it just to remember that expression on Gallagher’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> I am themintsauce and someone may have just taught me how to hyperlink! (Dammit, no they didn't.)


End file.
